When Demons Wake
by roxas-for-president
Summary: They saw Naruto die.They saw his soul get ripped from his body. They saw Kyuubi take over. Everything they saw was a lie …SasuNaruSasu…
1. The Road To Hell

**Disclaimer: **One day, I'm gonna come up with something _really_ clever to put here. And it'll blow your minds away. Seriously. They'll make a movie out of it. I'll be on Oprah. Kishimoto will bow to me and end Naruto the way I want it.

**Author's Notes: ** I deleted this, rewrote and basically turned it into an abomination. Why? I got swamped with my ideas :( I wanted to write what people wanted to read, but, where the fun in if can't write for myself. XD

**Warnings: **Yaoi/Het. Violence. Gore. OOC-ness is a possibility. Language and all that fun stuff.

**Dedications: ** To the Lovely Ardven, my closet hippy-goth who draws my fight scenes out in sticks figures for me. Try it. It helps. As well as DiZx, a boy i force to read yaoi ;3

x

_-x When Demons Wake x-_

**Chapter One: The Road to Hell**

There are little rivulets of blood streaming down his body, and every time his feet strike the ground a jarring pain snaps up his spine ringing in his head. He is moving himself forwards by sheer force of will power, or the jarring sense of fear that is haphazardly destroying his reality. His heart is pumping explosively against his chest as he sucks in dry cold air.

A haze sweeps over him like a slow seeping poison, invisible to the naked eye - but he can feel the acid flow through his veins, parching them.

_This is really bad._

Part of him suspects he's being followed. Looking over his shoulder, the paranoia starts to set in, but they couldn't have followed him this far, right?

It's confirmed as he lets out a gasp, but the sound catches in his throat and he coughs up a sticky red substance that trickles like syrupy fluid across his tongue. The haze is rendering most of his limbs useless as if he is running with weights stitched to his skin. His breathing hitches, and becomes erratic as black marks begin to etch onto his wrists, leaving a trail of blood to run down the length of his arm to drip to the forest floor below.

Slumping to the ground, he is somewhat aware that he's bleeding everywhere, blood mixing in with dirt and there's a disgustingly strong taste of copper in his mouth. He tries to ignore it but he thinks he just might be sick; his stomach wretches as he holds down the bile in his throat.

For a moment he considers giving up, closing his eyes and calling hell's angels to come and drag him away from inevitable doom. As he lies on his back with a pressure against his chest, he's vaguely aware of how cold he is and how his breath is crystallizing in the icy air. He doesn't know how far he's got to go, but he's under the vague inclination he can't go any further.

_Not like this_

He presses his thumb to his mouth and harshly takes the skin between his teeth, breaking the skin. Bringing the bleeding appendage to the ground, he fades in and out of awareness as he scrawls peculiar symbols, pushing slivers of chakra into each one. The air stinks of metal and acid, his skull ring and his eyes water. He can feel a jarring in his consciousness, as if someone was trying to break into his mind, and can hear the whispers.

Then, the pain comes - white hot and blinding - so sudden that all he wants to do is pass out and submit to his pursuers. It feels like a good idea.

_In fact, it feels like a goddamn spiffing idea._

The black markings on his skin are spreading, threatening to take over the surface; hot and scalding his skin like acid. In sheer desperation, he forces chakra to accumulate to hands, feeling vaguely as though someone is forcibly pushing his heart through a sieve.

A rusty, barb wired sieve.

He cries out as his arms are forcibly anchored to the floor, splayed out at his sides in a sinner's position. The black markings bleed to the ground and singe into the earth's surface, forming a circle around him as if he were to be sacrificed. He grits his teeth as the tips of his fingers to spark weakly, like flickering flames in a rainstorm. It sends a putrid smell into the air as it forces blood to clot and dry.

Ignoring the sensation of cells, flesh and muscle breaking and how the pain is mauling at his nerves as they are charred internally, he keeps forcing chakra to his hands. After a while, his skin starts to tingle and a trail of ice tickles down the extent of his spine, forcing the muscle to contract as the sky is grace with an ear splitting scream.

After all, lightning doesn't burn… it freezes.

Skin blisters and splits under enormous pressure, and soon, his body can no longer hold the force. He arches a little, head and feet never leaving contact with the ground, tilts his head back and forces his eyes to close as his mouth forms into a silent scream. Angry threads of blue chakra tear through the skin of his arms, chest, legs and leaps into the sky, lightening crackling from the fresh wound.

Eerily, as his consciousness fades into an eternal slumber, he can feel the creature ascend.

X

The Shinobi that guard the outer wall of the Kirigakure looked to the soaring sky as a thousand sparks expanded in the distance, claiming the horizon, singing the blue sky a sickly grey.

For a moment, time stood still.

The lightening turns an ominous red and fades away, the ripples it created in the sky receded and returned to its point as if the entire scene was rewound, leaving a sense of dread in its departure.

Another Shinobi shouts something vaguely distorted before she makes a few hand gestures, breathing out a fire jutsu onto a large ceremonial dish full of oil. It catches alight and starts to burn in warning. It's a warning saying that something is coming, that something is out there and she hopes the message makes it across the village in time.

Shinobi gather at the gate, aiding rushing civilians that are retreating from the coast in a flurry of limbs and materials, catches of fist lay abandoned as a thick dark cloud of mist flows over the water, freezing the once warm water to an ice cold. The guards at the front hope to calm down the sudden panic as they brace the village gates, holding kunai at length and ready to face their unknown enemy.

ANBU slip from the surrounding buildings, hands touching the ground with fingers splayed as they land in a crouch – those with earth based type elemental chakra force their power into the ground, injecting the earth with the foreign power, searching for the disturbance in the distance. Their fingers are held at their lips as they freeze as if they were carved statues. There is a sickening snap as one of the ANBU's elbows forcibly bends in the wrong direction, and he cries out and falls to the floor, clutching his and grunting pain through clenched teeth. A comrade attends the fallen Shinobi and rips the material away from the shattered bone, there are black markings rising on the surface, taking over like a thousand little spiders.

A sound of a waning tree fills the air as well as the vague notion of rocks falling and colliding. The earth begins to tremor and the ocean rippled causing waves to harshly crash. There was something under the surface trying to break out and there, to the right, the rocks have been disturbed, like someone is forcing them to move underneath. A rock slides off a pile and hits the ground and then the earth snaps.

The ANBU draw their hands form the ground as if there palms had been burnt, and when they see the thick charred black surface they realize that's exactly what happened. The ground shoots upwards in eccentric spider web patterns as a dark chakra leaks to the surface like molten lava.

The things had followed their chakra.

Every Shinobi of that regiment now had pulsating marks all over their bodies.

Experienced Shinobi could taste the air and identify the contents that were held within it. Normally it would be a mixture of chemicals, metals, nature and oxygen; however, they concluded without uncertainty, the atmosphere was being strangled with chakra. The leader of the group makes erratic hand movements to his subordinates,

"Warn the village!"

However the command was witnessed with blind eyes and the young Shinobi paled with fear as a wave of killing intent swept over them, their movements becoming slurred and senses clouded. The Shinobi at the wall clutched their weapons even tighter as they could no longer control the shaking of their fingers. Eyes searched the dark sky, to be greeted by the steady onslaught of rain.

The mist, and rain combined turns the atmosphere to an icy chill, vapour can be seen from panting mouths as the Shinobi wait.

If it was any other day, it would have been considered beautiful picture - water sliding off the leaves of trees, falling into the crevices of stone built streets and the soft pattering of rain hitting tin and concrete. The proud image was drenched in impending chaos.

And then it comes.

For what feels like an eternity, the citizens of the village gasp simultaneously as an unexplainable fear gripped them by the throat, constricting breath. Children cease playing the streets and ran to the shelter of their parents, clutching clothes with tiny fingers. People at food outlets literally halted at their tasks, chopsticks falling limply to clatter at their sides, food sloshing back to their bowls untouched. A man clutches his throat as it turns to ash in his mouth, and red seeps into the clear liquid of water, staining the glass.

For a moment, nobody uttered a sound.

A resounding scream erupted into the air as an invisible force pushed them to their knees, black marks erupting and etching into skin, claiming the organ as their own. Some scratched the deformity away – and didn't succeed, at all – and others panicked, creating and eerie symphony of sound. Shinobi were forced to the ground, the insignias forming dark rings around their sprawled bodies as their chakra was literally sucked from their veins.

The village was defenceless.

To the outsiders, it was an amusing sight to witness an entire village writhe in pain.

A Shinobi guarding the wall was flung backwards; their chakra was forcibly drained from their body, forming an iridescent ball over their heart before it was ripped harshly from their body. They fell, back connecting with the side of the ceremonial oil drum with enough force to send the flare over the edge of the wall.

The citizens below never stood a chance.

In the distance, a single hiatate fell in slow motion towards the ground as if it was held in suspension, the material fluttering out behind it like wings. Dust, dirt and ash slowly filtered into the air as it came in contact with the landscape.

The village erupted into flames; villagers silenced as flames engulfed everything without mercy, sparing no one from its fingertips.

The hidden leaf insignia was proudly displayed on the hiatate before the metal slowly darkened with falling ash.

The once proud and strong Kirikagure lay in ruins.

xxx

So what you think? :D


	2. Underneath The Underneath

**Disclaimer: ** Step right up, my name is Masashi Kishimoto, and I am pimping out any Naruto character of your choice. Come one ladies! Have at them! Oh god! Cops. Laters

**Notes:** for the people that have already read this - I'm sorry for deleting it and rewriting it. The first two chapters are basically the same, but with extras and different things in the cocktail mix :P sorry again!

_-x When Demons Wake x-  
_**Chapter Two: Underneath The Underneath**

He's looking for signs of movement – the sudden movement of a creature lurking in the bushes, the sound of gravel being crushed, the crying of a hawk in the distance or the rustling of leaves.

He knows there's going to be movement, his opponent isn't as skilled in the Shinobi arts as he is, but he knows that's not an excuse to let his guard falter for even a slight fraction as he slicks back into the shadow of the trees canopy.

Kakashi-sensei's training has been etched too deeply in his mind to forget this one simple rule, _never judge your opponent on appearance or skill alone. _The message became clearer after his eighteenth birthday, when he may or may not have casually suggested something to a pretty little Kunoichi, who, in turn, decided to sucker punch him in the stomach, slug him across the jaw, knee him in the South Pole and left him crumbling to an undignifying heap to the floor.

_Life lesson number five hundred and twenty-five _he reflects sourly, _women, all shapes and sizes, are just plain evil._

Kakashi had never let him live that day down.

He's standing on a branch, slightly bent at the knees with an arm and chakra powered palm outstretched and attached to the rough bark of the tree, latching onto the he surface with blue strings of raw energy.

His opponent isn't far, that he can sense, he's the type of enemy that lurks in the shadows and springs out at the first sight of blood, claws and teeth bared, ready for the fight.

He is prepared for anything.

Twenty four years of life have prepared him for basically anything the world can throw at him.

A strand of hair tickles his nose as he leans forward a little so he's parallel to the ground, peeking through the curtain of leaves that conceals his hiding place. His hair is as untameable as it has always been, obnoxiously yellow blonde, growing upwards in a messy array of spikes and thankfully growing downwards. It's a sporadic cut that looks very similar to his father's once upon time, rather than a child that had too much fun growing up playing with a fork and an electrical socket.

Not that he'd admit to anyone he did.

"Oh come on!" he curses as an itchy, prickly sort of feeling spreads up his leg, worsening with each limb it comes in contact with. He begins to form a slight twitch in his blue eyes. He vaguely looks like a maniacal serial killer with withdrawal symptoms.

He mentally wills the itchy feeling to go away, but his leg doesn't seem to understand that in order to be stealthy it means inactivity for possibly hours on end. His leg argues that wearing orange isn't exactly stealthy and moving him would be a good idea right about now because he's going numb. Uzumaki Naruto frowns and is about to argue back when a kunai suddenly impales itself on a strategically placed target near his boot covered foot.

_Gotcha now sucker._

Naruto's face nearly splits in two at the grin he's now sporting, his opponent races out of a nearby thicket of vegetation and Naruto pushes a fair amount of chakra to his feet, letting go of his chakra binds and leaps off the branch he's perched on.

Blood is rushing hard and fast into his ears, heart beating erratically against his ribcage in anticipation at his prey, his arms are positioned to give the illusion of predator's claws as he soars in midair.

_Two hours, one hundred and twenty minutes, and seven thousand and two hundred seconds of waiting finally paid off!_

He's about to descend on his target. Naruto can already taste the victory in his mouth, whilst his mental self does the conga repetitively in his mind. However his delusion of grandeur is cut dramatically short as something cold, heavy and amphibious lands on his head. Naruto wobbles, loses concentration, yells something vulgar and unrepeatable and falls head first to the floor with all the grace and elegancy he had when he was twelve years old.

Life sucked, no seriously, it did.

After he finishes blinking away all the black spots from his eyes a shadow falls over his face. The rabbit blinks at him before it promptly kicked him in the face with a strong foot and then proceeded to bound away into the bushes from whence it came.

His thoughts are torn between a mantra of _well… there goes dinner _and _two hours, one hundred and twenty minutes, seven thousand and two hundred seconds of waiting for NOTHING!_

Naruto groans mournfully and looks up to the sky as he blows blood away from his lips that fell from his oh-god-please-don't-be-broken nose to see two pairs of quizzical and googly eyes peering down at him. One of the grogs was obviously trying to hold back laughter but failing pitifully, and the other had a shocked-I-am-not-apart-of-this-what-are-you-looking-at-me-for expression.

"On his head! WOO! Ten crickets for me!"

"Gamakichi, Gamasaku, I hate you" Naruto groaned out the names and rolled over onto his stomach away from the defiling eyes, only to trigger one of his traps to catch the aforementioned rabbit.

_Dinner_, he sighs, defeated.

Ropes secure themselves around his right ankle and throw him up into the air; he rotates a bit in a half circle to the side and dangles from a thin tree branch with his skull approximately half a metre from becoming intimate with the ground. The back of his head connects rather painfully with a boulder and he cries out in pain.

The frogs are unfazed.

"Couldn't you have belly flopped?" Gamakichi asked, peering up at the blonde Shinobi, "I would've one the bet!"

_A bet?_ His future dinner was wasted, ruined, and nonexistent because of a bet!

"So you just ruined my chances of eating an actual meal for the first time in six months for a bet? _A bet!_ I'm dying of malnutrition frog face! Don't you care about starving children? Do you care if I live or die! No I bet you don't!" Naruto used his momentum from the ropes swinging movement to propel himself forward to take a deathly swat at the orange frog.

The question was hanging on the air for awhile before both frogs promptly answered, "Of course we care" without missing a single beat.

"Feeling the love"

Swat. Pause.

"How come you two are here?"

"Well…" Gamasaku, the pink frog began somewhat slowly and Naruto was pretty sure that if she was human she would have lifted an arm, smiled sheepishly whilst scratching the back of her head in a nervous gesture, "we came to report that the mission…um… failed."

She watched the blond human take another deadly swipe at the orange frog and vaguely heard something that sounded like 'damn you slime ball stop moving!' until he registered her words.

The atmosphere went deadly silent. It was as if winter came two seasons earlier with the ferociousness of a tigress whose cubs had been harassed by idiots with a suicidal death wish. Deadly, violent and ultimately resulted with blood and other extremities ending up all over the white cotton surface.

The frogs shivered.

"WHAT!?!"

Gamakichi was grinning quite nervously, completely unknowing that he was currently tempering with a life or death situation and goddamn-you-better-have-an-explanation-or- so-help-me-god-there-will-be-pain, lots-of-pain type of situation as well, "well… it wasn't _exactly_ a failure. It just _'sort of'_ was.

"Sort of?" Naruto projected thrashing wildly in what would have been a menacing sort of way if he wasn't currently hanging upside down swaying side to side in a hypnotizing motion. The branch the rope was attached to wasn't meant to support his type of weight and cracked under the pressure, sending him once again into a tumbling mess to the ground.

He has leaves in his hair, mud all over his skin and a stick about to stab somewhere in a potentially dangerous and very painful place.

_I hate you and my leg hurts._

"Yeah, like… it's not really a _failed_ mission, because the mission is still in action!" Gamasaku said rather nervously, before pointing a flipper menacingly at Gamakichi, "and it was completely his idea!"

"Hey! Don't pin this one on me!"

"It wasn't my idea! It was yours!"

"I had saké in my system! Since _when_ do I do _responsible_ things with saké in my system! Besides as I recall _you_ were the one that _mentioned_ it to the tyke!' Gamakichi shouted.

The pink frog snorted, "Yeah sure, and you were the total moron that decided to teach the kid how to disappear!"

"He did not disappear! He just went away for awhile! And you were the one that freaked out and hightailed out of there the moment we couldn't sense his chakra anymore!" Gamakichi hopped on the ground in exasperation, a frog way of claiming a definite hissy fit.

"I did not high tail! I went to get back up!" she screeched and redirected the position of her flipper to face Naruto instead of the orange frog, which she wanted to throttle over the head with a blunt object repeatedly until she felt better. Since she was rather frustrated, that might be a continuous occurrence for a long period of time.

"Some back up!"

They both stopped arguing and watched incredulously as Naruto did a particularly amazing balancing act on one leg as he tried to gain feeling back into the lower half of his body, arms flailing wildly and he looked like he was vaguely having an epileptic fit.

They both stifled laughter as he fell to the floor once again - they would have laughed out if it wasn't for the hard set glare on his face that would have made the frog king fall pitifully closer to the floor and beg for mercy.

The frogs cringed, knowing full well that anger was directly solely at them.

"So… which one of you is going to tell me exactly what happened?" Naruto leant against the base of a tree with his arms folded securely over his chest, oozing out an aura that practically demanded that 'all minions please spill your secrets now or suffer the consequences.'

"Well…" the orange frog began. He decided to charge the gates of hell head on rather than cowardly escape out the back door, "He disappeared an hour ago and we haven't been able to find him"

"Oh my god!" the pink frog exclaimed, shaking her head in frustration, "we agreed we were going to tell him _subtly_, you tactless toad! Why don't you just get a banner saying 'I am stupid' and dance around a fungus patch with an eagle with _appetizer_ pinned to your wart ridden forehead! Some of us _want_ to live to have tadpoles!"

Naruto tensed, his spine going stiff and rigid, he could feel the throb of a vein pounding against his temple, he takes a deep breath and mentally calms himself down so he doesn't strangle the frogs in front of him, and he breathes out slowly, "How. Did. You. Lose. Him?"

The frogs blinked and hopped away slightly as flames briefly erupted behind the blonde man comically. Naruto cracked his knuckles unintentionally, but all the same felt the satisfaction as Gamakichi gulped slightly. The orange frog is silent for a few hours, which is realistically about thirty seconds, as he tries to think up an excuse that will probably save him for being sold and turned into a academy science project that involved scalpel's and latex gloves and whiny children with a tendency to inflict pain.

Lots of pain.

The thinking is slowly driving Naruto crazy. Currently he is being assaulted by several thousand emotions that make him want to throw a loud and vicious temper tantrum and storm childishly into the woods and kick a tree till it crumbles.

The silence becomes overwhelming.

"Will you just spit it out?" Naruto grumbles between clenched teeth. He's studying the forest floor and taking note of the oddly shaped pine needles that are scattered across it "before I magically turn you into caviar and feed you to the pigeons!"

Gamakichi would have laughed at the threat, if Naruto didn't have that serious spark in his eyes, "well, you see, he was like a magician, he went into the cupboard said a few words and _**'poof'**_ disappeared into thin air, but the only problem is… we lost the cupboard. It's not as bad as it sounds. Honestly."

_Now, that made complete sense, didn't it?_

"I've tried asking you nicely, I've tried asking you not nicely, now I'll try to forcibly making you talk by tampering with your secret supply of crickets, which I do know about!"

_Okay, maybe not!_

"Okay, I'll talk!" Gamasaku cried pitifully, "he wanted to play 'Hide and Go Seek the ANBU', but he said we were cheating because 'we could sense his chakra and he couldn't sense ours' and this irresponsible maggot-breath idiotic worm spawn over there!" she slapped Gamakichi who squawked, "Taught him how to conceal his chakra like a _real _ANBU and then he disappears! We've been looking for him _everywhere _and can't find him! It's Gamakichi's fault! I'm innocent of this devious crime! Leave the crickets alone!"

She breathes loudly, "He's crazy, and didn't I tell you he was crazy!"

Naruto rubs the back of his head and has a fairly blank expression on his face. He wondered how the pink frog turned that striking shade of violet, "I thought you said he was an irresponsible maggot-breath idiotic worm spawn…" he trails off and now looks thoughtful.

The atmosphere goes deadly silent.

"Do you even feel remotely evil when you slowly destroy my self esteem?"

"NO!" Gamasaku says flatly.

"I don't even like maggots!"

Naruto chews on his tongue, fighting against amusement, annoyance and anxiousness as the frogs verbally destroy each other's sanity. He watches them bicker, well, try to bicker, Gamakichi's debating skills were about as productive as having an argument over paint colours with a brick wall – silent and unmoving and quite frankly doesn't give a damn. Gamasaku tore him down after every attempt anyway; she wasn't giving an inch and was constantly rolling her slimy eyes over the canopy of the forest.

Uzumaki Naruto feels it first.

It's a slight burning feel travelling throughout his veins, clogging up his senses and causing his skin to itch.

"Now the kid's out there in the wilderness is probably getting mauled by demented squirrels and it's your entire fault! Now if you had just listened to me-

"I looked in his eyes! Can you deny those eyes!?! No, I think not!"

"What part of _mauled_ don't you understand! You dung beetle!"

Naruto bolted of the floor, with the words "_I-don't-like-the-feel-of-that_" on his lips as he stormed off in some random direction. The frogs stopped mid insult and scrambled up and pelted after Naruto's silhouette.

"What are we doing?"

"Are we going to sacrifice Gamakichi to the animal gods to ensure our charge's safety?"

"I- what? Who- **WHY? **When did I agree to that exactly?"

Naruto snorted, he was tired, he was agitated, he was hungry and the mental image of sticking pins into his orange frog companion and offering him on a silver platter to please anyone wasn't exactly crossing his mind right at this moment – however tempting the offer may be to the pink frog. Actually, the only thing crossing his mind was a long string of profanities that would put even Tayuya to shame.

The tips of his canines are moving over his lower lip, blonde eyebrows framing his eyes which are unconsciously flickering through blue and sinister red like malicious glowing garnet.

"Ash." He says hoarsely, fearing the worst, turning his head towards the direction its coming from, "on the wind"

The Kyuubi growls low and menacingly in his head and he can feel the heat of the seal attack the skin of his stomach and he flinches as his eyes began to water. His face contorts into a frown as other scents such as blood, dirt and acid rain assault his senses. He's losing his nerve, right then and there, as Kyuubi's excitement and worry is beginning to show through his normally happy composure.

Naruto is opening his mouth in order to say anything but his throat is swallowing up the words before they could breach. As of late the fox demon has become more frequent and more savage, even despite his constant efforts to push the fox back down and to the side, to concentrate on something that didn't want to break free and currently have a blood bath under the moonlit sky.

Naruto halted abruptly and leant quite forcefully on a tree, his fingers pressed against the knobby skin of the old oak as hot adrenaline zipped up and down his spine, spreading to the tips of his fingers and toes. His hands clutched his head and he began to grind his teeth.

The frogs had stopped bickering and were now looking on with wide, fearful eyes.

He doubled over as if he'd been punched in the stomach and opened his eyes. The regularly sky blue eyes were now a violent purple, flashing now and then between their normal colour and a fiery red.

"Bastard—fox," Naruto growled through clenched teeth. "Go back where you belong!"

There's a slight pause and then his heart begins to beat faster and faster inside his chest, his veins dilate and blood rushes frantically about his body in all directions. The burst of red chakra fades as if it had been sucked into a vacuum and disintegrates, leaving the foul taste of baleful chakra to linger in the air. Naruto curses and slowly starts to regain his composure; the skin of his stomach is still hot as he can feel the heat reverberate through his clothes.

Gamakichi is the first one to break the silence, "I thought you said you could control him now."

Naruto choked on oxygen and gave the frog prince an amused look.

Gamasaku seemed to be swallowing her tongue.

"Nah, I would never claim I could control the bastard fox, it's like trying to force pervy sage to give up peeking on naked women" Naruto responded grinning, blue eyes sparking with something that both frogs knew wasn't laughter or amusement, "besides, that's the first time in awhile he's done that, so something in that direction made him excited. We should check it out, and if it made Kyuubi curious, it must be something dangerous"

_Hang on; he wants to go towards the thing that made his inmate go psychopathic?_

"Hang on… what about your -"

"- FIND HIM!"

And with that shout, Naruto ran through the trees hair dancing across his face as he melted into the shadows. He moved through the clot of trees, counting how many metres he had travelled and how many he had to go before he could find the source of Kyuubi's outburst.

There was no sign of anything, no blood split anywhere, no corpses, no signs, no freaky half preformed demon extraction ceremonies - there's nothing of interest anywhere. Naruto knows better though, Kyuubi doesn't break free or try to gain control for no apparent reason, even if it did benefit him in some sick way. The fox is never wrong about anything. So far. So he plows on.

Nearing Kirikagure, Naruto halts as his skin begins to burn, the marks underneath the bandages on his forearms itch. It's a tingling feeling that seemed to overtake his body and he knows he's felt this feeling somewhere before.

A feeling from so long ago.

The air is too dry here, too stale and too humid. The mountains and land of Kirikagure is always shrouded with unforgiving, consuming mist, hiding its position from the rest of the world. A perfect place to hide if you wish to never be found and he guessed that's why he came here in the first place. However, the mountains are clear, and he can see the slightly iced tips reaching for the sky.

Where he is, the ground has been disturbed as if something large had been dragged through here, disrupting the blades of grass and the leaves, leaving patterns in the dirt. Twigs are snapped, some of the smaller plants stems are bent and all over the trees thick chunks have been ripped out. It was like a large animal leaving red wounds to announce its arrival. Further, some of the larger rocks have been disturbed and the path opens up in a clearing where an endless sea of ash covers the ground, floating in the air like snow.

Naruto's enraged and scintillating cerulean blue eyes caught sight of something and literally began simmering with a fire that threatened to snap the ground underneath his feet. His eyes lingered over the landscape where Kirikagure once stood with its proud walls and strong military force. The buildings were bleached white, with strange ivory powder covering the remains. Black markings, markings he has _seen_ before were littered over every available surface, consuming, claiming whatever monstrosity had occurred here.

The powder beneath his feet crunched, it was a sickening sound that made him wince with every step. A Kirikagure flags waved mournfully on the abandoned Mizukage tower, the Water insignia covered with bloody handprints, swiped over, as if someone had fell. It was a mourning lament for a village that once was.

A particularly loud crunch forced Naruto to look down to the ground. It occurred to him he wasn't walking on ash or rubble. At this moment, he'd take any of those options over the one he was currently faced with. It was bone and marrow, a sickening mix of the two that covered everything, choking all life.

At this Naruto's eyes grew wide again and the aggression on his face was lost to blind fear as the words he was forming on his tongue whispered and melted into nothingness. Kyuubi roared in his mind.

Naruto took a step back, eyes searching for anything – Life, Bodies, Evidence - Something that would reveal that this was some sort of nightmare, or illusion. The jutsu he just preformed to rid of genjutsu revealed it wasn't a dream, an illusion. It was reality. He swallowed down the cold feeling that appeared in his stomach.

_What happened here?_

Only the wind could answer him.

xxx

This chapter is pretty much the same as the other one, but a different ending.  
which i still don't like.  
oh, the drags of trying to be a writer. D=


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